Mines as offensive weapon

Did you have any flaks?  Put 6 or 10 flaks into your forces and watch the mines just disappear.  Due to their multiple gun placements, they can blast mines ridiculously quickly.

I don't know about not being able to react in time.  I've tried this before, and there's about 15 seconds before the mines become armed, which is PLENTY of time.  

I actually do use these things offensively...  If I'm fighting over a neutral planet, say a Gas Giant, I will quite commonly lay a few gravity mines right beside them to act as a sudo-PJI.  I don't ever take the time to do it to all ships, but I do make sure to knock out capitals, HC's, and Carriers..  After that, I simply lay normal mines to knock out their health...  In other words, I use this all the time, if for no other reason than to hear that thing say, "I've got a present for you.."  It makes me laugh maniacally every time.  I love the Ruiner..  

The AI will happily walk into mines.  A player will move around them and will only fall into a minefield by accident.

Most of the time...  Later in the game, I just stop caring about mines and just start running over them because I like the explosions of the mod I downloaded the other day.  But in all reality, I think that if you had 5 ruiners or so, you could easily put them in a world of hurt via EM's or prevent their escape with GM's.  And I don't just lay them anywhere..  I actually do use them strategically...  Though now that you mention it, I will make sure to avoid putting them near flak.

During the beta people used mines offensively all the time.  And even after beta it was still possible with advent - the mines could take out STRUCTURES, so all you had to do was go in and lay mines around his structures and BOOM!  I must say, I actually liked using this ability, and was disappointed when they took it out, but it probably was OP or unbalanced.

In general mines are too expensive right now to be worth using.  They really need to lower the cost, we are playing without one of the promised units in the expansion - mines - because they are too expensive.

I just use this tactic in a battle It was soo much fun watching their fleet go poff. A bunch of lrms were in a group and I layed mines right on top of them. 15 seconds later they were gone. I had already out fleeted them but this was so much fun watching mines do all the work for me and I bet the were pulling there hair out when it happened It is so much fun planting mines and watching them do their work in the enimy fleet.

Ive seen a vasari player use mines offensively. Every time i would engage him mines would spread out all around his cap followed by repair cloud. Never seen anyone do that before.

what is more fun is when your enemy is fighting a battle at one of your planets you put mines all the way to the phase lane, then laugh at them when they want to retreat.

if they go around they lose their fleet to my fleet, if they stay they lose their fleet and if they go though the mines they lose their fleet.

you should try it some time, usually people are microing in battles too much to notice mines being layed behind them

_|~Uber

Gentlemen! I think we MAY have found the answer to disciple/seeker/illum spam! teehee... ima go do some minelayer vs advent tests....

I could see that going poorly since seekers are exactly what you need to help kill them even after they phase out.

[_]-Greyfox

The thing is the seekers are easy to kill and if there is a lot of mines what are you going to do? They can not take out all the mines at once.

Emp i was playing you with mines yester day and my mine tactics do wonders. I developed it long ago its quite easy to counetr when you know its coming but if you are suprised with that and mines are microed well it works in 95% cases.

The weak point is that its really hard to micro it.

My mine tactic rocks!!!

My MINES are ready!!

Use hold position so they don't wade out into them and give you a modicum of control advancing to clear it out.  Seekers to make them show up and illums or flak to kill the mines.  It can be tempting to go through them anyways if the vasari builds a SB behind the mines but generally they aren't too bad to clear out if you have a decent sized fleet.  SC are good to knock down the ruiners though.

[_]-Greyfox

You played quite well in that game.... I look at the replay to figure how you out econed me and it was pretty much I spent too much time killing a roid that was your allies when I need to expaned faster. Anyway, your mine tactic has noted by me and I will not forget it.  

@Greyfox

Your right. If you see the ruiners coming You can kill them quick with a late game fleet filled with bombers.